Stike Shimla off the list

I went on a trip to Shimla this past weekend. It basically locked up Himachal Pradesh as most beautiful state in India I've seen and basically my second favorite overall. It probably helped that the weather was perfect - it was raining! (I love how the Indian notion of a beautiful day is so different from the Western notion!) We were constantly surrounded by fog and mist (and later I looked up the difference between fog and mist and clouds and water vapor!) I felt that Shimla itself isn't as beautiful as Manali, but this trip in particular was awesome and the cloudy nature of the area made it perfect. There was a helipad that we went to that is usually a scenic lookout, but that day you couldn't even see the entire helipad itself, let alone the mountains around us. But that in itself was a beautiful experience. This was my first trip over here with my colleagues, so that was interesting as well. Our idiot manager, whom I've written about before, drove his car and he's as bad a driver as he's a manager.

The main attraction in Shimla is the "Mall Road" which is a nice stretch of shops. It also had some great lookouts and is the starting point for a bunch of trips around that area. At this point I must mention this - the babe factor of this place is through the roof! Sorry if that sounds sleazy but I've never seen so many beautiful girls/women in one place. I even spent a good amount of time (like the nerd that I am) discussing why there would be so many beautiful girls here. It's perhaps a combination of the things like the general (perceived) beauty of N. Indians, combined with a basic economic stardard that people who go on vacations to places like Shimla, and the fact that being summer, you have a generally younger (school/college going) crowd here.

Again, the people were very nice here, as in Manali. A lot more monkeys though. They were very aggressive and there are signs everywhere asking people to be careful about monkeys. The other problem here is that it's hugely popular and much more accessible than Manali, which means that it's very crowded. They have a lot of parking restrictions without which the roads would constantly be blocked. This also means that you can't just drive around and park wherever you wish. I would come here again, but not before visiting the other places in this area, and only because it's so close by.